Day 11, Tour09 Friedrichshof, to Pritzhagen, Germany

The second, and last, end of the Oder-Niesse Radweg I ran into today

I rode 90 miles today. The last 20 miles were quite hilly, and very hard on my A-Fibbed body. I had to leave the radweg twice today, once for very bad pavement and the second time because it was under construction. I could have, and should have, gone back to the radweg the second time, but it was getting late and I figured I could find a place to stay. It was easy, if a little hilly riding way from the radweg to the nearest town big enough to have a hotel, but it didn't have a hotel and then I had a long hard, and very hilly, ride before I found a place to stay. I ended up 50 km west of where I was planning to stop on the radweg ;-{. I think I'll take a train tomorrow...

One benefit of the long ride, I finally saw a Storks in nest
I've seen a number of adult storks and a few empty storks nests, but no nests with storks in them before this one

Riding the radweg in the Unteres National Park

I left my Gasthaus about 8:30 AM and rode, in light rain, into Gartz. In Gartz, I found the radweg - I spotted a Pension which looked like its business was bicyclists and, it was on the radweg - and headed south along the Oder. There is a long - 60km? - stretch of radweg in the park, but it does come out of the park at Schwedt, perhaps 20 km from Gartz. Schwedt is a big city with all services, but I just stopped under a tree - it was raining a bit - and ate some of the pastry I bought in Locknitz yesterday.

Passing a boat headed north on the Oder
I also met a lot of bicycle tourists coming north
but none going south

Riding the radweg was easy and peaceful and, after a while, a bit boring. It got interesting, in the Chinese sense when I came to a Oder-Niesse Radweg Ends sign.

I was planning on lunch in Hohennsaaten, but I didn't get there till 3 PM.

I'm still confused about what was going on with that sign, but I was able to continue on toward Hohennsaaten, where I hoped to stop for lunch, for 10 more km. Then, after passing Stolpe, which is where I would have started on the radweg if I had taken the train to Angermunde yesterday, I came to a section of Radweg that was too rough to ride. I rode back to Stolpe and decided to ride to Angermunde - 10 km - and eat lunch there.

A field of sunflowers on the way to Angermunde

Lunch at a 'Greek' restaurant in Angermunde wasn't a very good value, but it was enough to keep me going, so I headed back to the radweg at Hohensaaten.

Coming back down into the Oder river valley

I continued on down the radweg to Hohenwutzen, briefly crossed the Oder into Poland, then headed for Kostrzyn, Poland, 50 km on down the radweg. It was going to a long day getting there, so I stopped for some soup, bread and beer at a - the only - gasthaus on this section. then I rode on and ran into the closed section of the radweg. I headed west, on a small dirt road, and kept heading west and south till I found this Gasthaus. My GPS said this area was the closest to the radweg with places to stay. To bad I didn't know how hilly it was!

Wheat harvest near where I stopped for the night

I was really hurting in the hills and struggling to make it to the nearest place to stay. A few km before the place my GPS was routing me to, I saw a sign for a gasthaus. I turned down the road it was on and into the village of Printzhagen. Then I saw a sign indicating that there were two Printzhagen gasthausen. I stopped at the first one.

It was big place, with a 'horsey' feel to it. It wasn't busy. I went in and and told the young clerk that I needed a room. She had to find the owner to get me approved as a suitable guest. The owner just asked if I was bicycle touring and when I wanted breakfast. That was enough to make me suitable.

The young woman showed me to my room and left me. I had asked her if they were serving supper, and they were, so , after cleaning up, I headed back over to the large dining room. Supper, which cost about same as my not very good lunch in Angermundi, was really good and so, the next morning, was breakfast. A really good place to stay in Germany. See http://www.pritzhagen.de for more info - it translates pretty well with google translate.

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